


Fairytale

by half_sleeping



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: AU, F/M, genderbender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-09
Updated: 2010-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-11 00:29:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/106238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/half_sleeping/pseuds/half_sleeping
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baldly: Human AU where adult England accidentally gets teen!fem!America knocked up. This was a kink meme request that got way, way out of hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fairytale

From all the time Emily Jones was four to the time she was ten, she was utterly, irrevocably, _entirely_ in love with Arthur Kirkland. She wrote his name all over her notebooks with hers, _Mrs. Emily Kirkland, Mr and Mrs Arthur Kirkland, Mrs Emily Jones-Kirkland_, she sighed over his pictures, she collected and read avidly _every. single. thing_ ever written (at least, for children) by the celebrated young author (his picture on the back of the book! So dashing! So _dreamy_), and held onto her crush with all the concentrated intensity of a young girl who had found in his books a peace and connection to her dead mother, who used to read them to her without fail, a girl suddenly moved to another country entirely to be taken care of by her uncle she’d never met before and live with a brother she barely knew.

The one she loved the bestest was _The Littlest Dragon_, with a runty, snarling, bad-tempered dragon, and (naturally) a beautiful princess. She read it every day, and faithfully cried every single time the princess ran away from her castle because the Littlest Dragon was going to go off alone. 

When she was eleven, she joined the field hockey team, and promptly forgot all about him in favour of goals and being captain and actual things to do after school, with friends like Kiko, the very quiet Japanese girl who always got all the best games and had the latest consoles and was as excited to find someone who liked video games and wasn't (the horror!) male, as much as Emily was, and not completely and utterly obsessed with the boys in their brother school across the very high, ivy-bedecked wall which separated them. It was truly and honestly pathetic, they both agreed, how their classmates swirled and eddied around the mere idea of them, even cool, pretty Elistaveta, senior and a prefect, with a musician boyfriend in that school, or stern, offensively sensible and efficient Bette, in their class, who was utterly over the moon about some air-headed Italian guy she'd never get up the nerve to talk to in a million years.

Sometimes, Emily reflected, all-girl's schools really could mess someone up. And anyway Matt's friends all sucked at video games and couldn't stop playing lacrosse long enough to drag their heads out their asses.

Emily entered her fourteenth year still blissfully unencumbered by any consciousness of any use whatsoever for anyone of the male species, though not for the lack of their trying. Though she'd never manage anything like the frankly exquisite prettiness of many of her classmates, being entirely too prone to laughing too loud, being too darkened by the sun, and being brazenly American, Emily had the same clean-cut appeal of many of her country men, pert and pretty and so full of self-confidence that she half-terrified everyone she met.

Her artist uncle, Francis, breathed a sigh of relief when he noticed this. Matthew was a nice, easy-to-handle boy, but he and Emily had come as rather a shock to him. Still, he was determined to do well by the both of them, and therefore had sent them to the very best school(s) he could think of in the hope that it would be good for them.

Then he'd promptly gone back to his paintings, secure in the knowledge that they looked happy and healthy, even despite the panic when Emily corrected him on her name.

"It's..." he said, desperately, "Not- Emily?"

She'd cast him a look full of the immense tolerance and irritation bestowed by the newly teen-aged on anyone over thirty. Or twenty, for that matter. "It's _Em_," she said, with her pretty mouth twisted up stubbornly. Matthew sighed in anticipation of her impassioned tirade. "Emily's too _girly_."

And so Em it was, the pretty, popular field-hockey captain who was the idol of her class, smart and self-assured. And Em was perfectly happy to keep it that way.

But when Em was fifteen, and had long-ago forgotten the depths of her immense, burning love, it came roaring right back up to meet her like a puck to the face.

.0.

Kiko stopped with her fingertips hovering over a very familiar name. "This one, I think," she said to Em. "They made a game based on it. There were a great many articles. A lot of people remembered the book from when they were children."

"That one?" said Em. "God, I _love_ that book! Or least I did, when I was tiny. I have all the series." She frowned. "How's the game?"

"Response has been mixed," said Kiko, which was her diplomatic way of saying that she hadn't gotten around to playing it and probably didn't plan to, at least until the controversy had died down, because Kiko hated even the suggestion of conflict. That was all right. It meant that Em could borrow it.

"Ruined," came a sharp snap, and they both turned to see a man glaring sullenly at the whole shelf of Arthur Kirkland's works. "Bloody agents, peddling material they don't understand to hacks who mutilate it."

Kiko shrunk behind Em at once, and Em patted her absently. "Played it, then?" she asked.

He snorted, turning the look of disdain onto her. "I don't play _video games_," he said, in much the same way that someone might say, _I don't eat roadkill._

Em bristled. "That's stupid," she said to him.

"Beg pardon?" he said. Why that- he'd _already_ dismissed her? She'd show him.

"How can you say it ruined the book if you've never played the game?" she demanded. "If you've never tried it, how can you call it ruined? Are you one of those narrow-minded assholes who judge without knowing anything?"

His considerable brows snapped together, and he sneered at her. He could have done nothing to infuriate her more. "There's no need to play it to know that some video game can never do justice to any book, let alone this one."

"I've never heard such _bullshit_, like, ever," said Em. Kiko made a desperate delicate little keening noise, imploring her outspoken friend. "_I_ love this book, and _I_ will play the game, and _then I'll_ judge if it's good or not. Who are you to say that it's ruined _The Littlest Dragon_, anyway?"

He stared at her slightly gobsmacked, much like pretty much everyone ever who cracked Em's easy laugh to stoke the fire underneath. "For one," he said, recovering admirably. "I wrote it."

.0.

"The _nerve_," Em snarled to Kiko. Kiko patted her arm.

"The _arrogance_," she told her Chemistry partner. Bette was forced to agree.

"Utterly reprehensible!" Em declared to Natasha. "Are we even friends?" smiled back the older girl.

"I can't believe I just fucking _ran away_!" she wailed to Matthew.

"Teach you that kind of language over the wall, eh?" said her brother.

"Shut up," she said. "I- I've never done that! If it had been any of you _you'd_ be the ones running! I want to _die_."

"Um," said Matthew, who had very vivid memories of how badly _he'd_ wanted to die after he'd teased Em about walking in on her enacting a wedding with her named-for-the-Littlest-Dragon toys and two dolls, for her and for Arthur Kirkland respectively. "You were freaked out, it's no big deal?"

"You are NO HELP," she shrieked at him, and went to relentlessly google Arthur over and over again.

.0.

_HE ASKED ME FOR YOUR NUMBER!!! *A*_ came Kiko's instant message.

Em took this casually. _Are they bothering you again?_ Guys had a tendency to take advantage of sweet, gentle Kiko, the only girl they ever saw making the pilgrimage to the manga sections alone, and milk her for the phone numbers of the other girls. The rest of the girls either travelled in packs, which Em rather approved of, or, like Bette, Natasha and Em herself, looked more likely to crush their little hearts and walk away without even noticing.

_THE AUTHOR!! THE ONE YOU FOUGHT WITH! HE WAS THERE TODAY!_ came Kiko's reply. She- sounded? read?- on the edge of a heart attack.

_WHAT WHAT WHAT_ Em typed. _DID YOU GIVE IT TO HIM???_

_HE HAS REALLY REALLY GREEN EYES. ;A; &gt;A&lt; _

Damn it! Kiko was weak to prettiness!_ TRAITOR! :&lt; :&lt; :&lt;, _Emily shot back.

_I'M SORRY, EM. HE WAS REALLY POLITE ABOUT IT. I FELT BAD. OTL OTL OTL_.

_I'm going to kill you, Kiko_.

When in doubt, bribe Em with shiny. Kiko attempted,_ I bought the game and can send it to you? If you would like it?_

_Em?_

_Em?_

.0.

 

“I know you are doing this to torment me,” said Em leadenly in response to the accented ‘Hello?’. “Please go away and let me die of embarrassment.”

“I-“ he said, hesitantly. “I don’t actually think you can really be more embarrassed than I am right now. I. I, um.”

 

“What?” said Em. This was really unbearable. She was _Emily Jones_! Captain of the unbeatable field hockey! Defender of the weak, the shy, the perennially voiceless! She had an opinion on everything you could possibly care to name, and the fire and intelligence to back it up! The younger girls were wholesale in love with her, and she encouraged it as the only alternative to impressionable little darlings falling head-over-heels for complete reprobates like Bette’s older brother or Kiko’s twin crazypants cousins!

“There’s going to be a movie,” he said, with the air of a man unburdening himself. “It’s a tie-in. With the game.”

“Oh, _god_,” said Em involuntarily and in spite of herself. All the marks of the dreaded shovelware! No, no- she stopped herself. No more exclamation marks. She refused. The next thing you knew she’d be having the vapours.

“So,” he continued, “It’s not so much a game based on the book as it is a game based on the movie of the book and- and-“

“And?” said Em, hypnotized by the clear impending train wreck.

“And it’s going to be so bad,” came his impassioned wail. “_SO BAD_.”

Em paused, choked a little, then threw back her head and laughed.

  
A disgruntled sound dropped out of the phone.

“Don’t- oh, geeze, haha- don’t be so dramatic,” she told him once she’d gotten her breath back. “I will admit that the chances of the game being good are rapidly dropping, but how badly do you screw up a children’s movie, anyway?”

“_So bad_,” he said, attempting once again to convey to her the depths of his anguish and despair.

Em made a soothing, cooing noise into the phone. “I’m sure it can’t be anywhere as bad as you’re dreading.”

“Yes,” came the definite tones of someone firmly getting a grip on himself. “Yes, yes, of course you’re right- but-“

“But?” said Em, archly, with the bubble of delight rising in her, making her feel giddy and like there was something in her which wanted to burst out. More laughter, probably. He was- _adorable_. It was cute. Her brain was clearly diseased.

“But what if it’s _worse_?”

Em considered this. “You’ll live?” she offered matter-of-factly.

“Oh, that’s a big help,” he said, and Em giggled.

His tone softened, and he said to her, “Really, though- thank you. That’s- that’s a big help.”

“Oh,” said Em. “I- um- you’re welcome?”

“You’re American, aren’t you?” he said, apropos of nothing.

“Yeah,” said Em, and immediately flashed back to an endless succession of teachers who had tried in vain to make her say ‘yes’ because it was more ladylike.

His chuckle reached seemed to vibrate right out of the phone and melt her spine and brains simultaneously. “Thought so.” Then he hung up.

Em stared at the phone for one long moment, then threw herself onto her bed and screamed.

.0.

  
Over the next month, Em learnt a great deal about Arthur Kirkland. He didn’t think that _The Littlest Dragon_ series was his best work, and Emily frankly could only forge her way half through his historical essays before she had to give up and go for a run with Britney blasting in her ears. He refused to call her Em, instead drawling out her full name in a way that no one else ever did, which made shivers run down her spine. He liked to garden and sit around reading books, and could afford to, his children’s series having caught the fantasy gravy train and thus making him feel rather as though he had sold out, though sold out to what exactly he couldn’t say. He could be prickly about his secret favourite things, and bad-tempered, though he always called back and sounded faintly embarrassed when he determinedly changed the subject and offered some roundabout form of apology.

When he saw her coming down the street with her friends, he choked, turned red, then ran right across the road and hid in a supermart.

Em was vaguely certain she should have been annoyed, but he was _so cute_. She’d never quite been able to raise meeting in person with him- and apparently he was some sort of hermit who never went out except to buy groceries- and there he was! Right there!

 

_Lucky_.

Kiko plucked at her sleeve. “Was that-“ she said.

“Oh, yes,” Em said, and began to walk faster.

Bette’s brow creased slightly in anxiety, possibly making a small child flinch instinctively. “Em, you are not-“ she stopped. “You are not- _bullying_ the poor man, are you? You do have rather a- a temper.” To put it as strongly as Bette could.

“I told you,” said Em, looking at herself critically in a shop window and undoing two buttons on her shirt. “I didn’t break Gil’s arm, just wrenched it a bit. Not bullying at all. Besides, he’s way older, I’m sure he can deal with it. Me.”

“The author or my brother?” said Bette, confused.

“Does it matter?” said Em. He hadn’t left. Perfect. “Look,” she said. “Go on ahead, okay? You don’t want to miss the match, right? Feliciano would be sad. And you want to sketch them today, don’t you, Kiko? Why don’t you go first and get started?”

At the mention of the Italian boy, Bette wavered visibly. At the mention of her manga, Kiko bit her lip. However, she tried again in the name of friendship. “What- what about Matthew, won’t he-“

“He wouldn’t dare,” said Em, eyes still fixed on the supermart’s door. “Catch up with you guys, okay? Bye.” And she- there was no other word for it, though Kiko was certain that in nearly four years of sisterhood she had never before seen Em do that- slinked up to the door, and slinked through.

“What if something happens to her?” said Bette, fretfully, even as they walked away, drawn by the promise of good-looking boys playing sports and also the desire not to be in the vicinity of yet another one of Em's mad starts.

Kiko felt, though she did not, of course feel that she could say it aloud, that they perhaps should be more worried about something happening to _him_.

 

.0.

Upon entering the store proper, Em's nerve finally failed her. She searched for his dark blond head, and located it determinedly examining the three different types of milk. She fancied she could see the beet-red tips of his ears, and pulled out her phone as she drifted slowly down one aisle of snacks.

"GAH," he said, as his phone rang. It was an actual ringing noise, which Em considered rather lacking in imagination. (The one she'd assigned him in fact switched between Love Story and something classical and stuffy which reminded her of him, depending on how much she'd let herself identify with Taylor Swift.)

"H-hello?" he said.

"Hell-_lo_," Em said. "You realise I'm in the store with you, right?"

"...yes," he said. Em refused to turn around and see if he was looking at her. "I- Emily, I-" She heard him take a huge breath. "I'm _old_."

"I googled you," she said, and focused her thoughts on the long 'discussion' they'd had over the evolution of nouns into verbs and how he thought that they were an American invention that had doomed language forever, and Em had argued that they were the mirror of the evolution and adaptability of the culture and times. She couldn't talk like that with anyone else. She didn't want to. "I- I know how old you are. Thirty's not all that old."

"I knew you were young," he said. "Know that you are. Because you are. Very young. Lord knows you don't- well, usually- act it, but-"

"I'm fifteen," said Em, aware that she was hardly helping her case.

"My God I am literally _twice your age_," he moaned into the phone.

"So?" Em said, and turned out of toiletries to corner him by the pet food, and _God_ he was even better looking that she remembered, tall but not too tall, face delicate and expressive and currently twisted in despair, and for some reason she couldn't stop looking at his hands, long-fingered and scar-white in places, rougher than a man who worked indoors should have and-

He jerked at hearing her voice from two places at once, and turned to see Emily hesitantly bearing down on him, long-legged and so fresh and bright and _young_, so young, he was disgusting and he should have never have called her and kept on calling her, just that she infuriated him and he couldn't leave it alone, leave her-

She smiled at him. "Here all alone?" she inquired, and damn damn damn she was mis-quoting his own damn children's book at him, and how could any type of monster ever refuse those eyes, so blue and clear and-

His own smile was crooked and complicated and shyly, slyly sweet in an unexpected way, and she understood, now, what Kiko meant she said 'dokidoki' and why Bette only ever stared mutely at Feliciano. "Not anymore," Arthur replied, right to cue, the littlest dragon to the princess-knight, and offered her his arm to leave the store.

.0.

 

She’d invaded his house.

 

Well, she’d honestly had to. If Arthur admitted anything to himself, it was that he really was a rather boring type of person. Even when he _had _been the sort of person to stay out nights and smoke and drink and pick fights, he’d been a) teenaged, and b) deathly sick and tired of it once the rebellion had worn off. Now all he did was garden, cook, occasionally pop a beer,  read, write, and scrupulously keep to teatime.

 

But Emily had come along, and installed herself at his house on the days when she didn’t have practice and most weekends, doing her homework in his living room and sprawling over his furniture, spreading her presence around the house like a breath of fresh air. They talked most nights. They’d been to see the movie of his book, and she’d consoled him through it, and Em had brought the game over to play it in his house and offer snide comments on it while he worked.

 

He really didn’t like to think about what they were doing. She was too young, that was the problem, even if she was a lot more intelligent and interesting than most of the adults he knew and never bothered to keep in contact with, even if she came over in her uniform, the skirt hiking up on her thighs as she stretched between her laptop and her notes and her pencil box.

 

Even if she kissed him goodbye just a little more dangerously every time, moving until she was half over him and almost into his lap, and _what was he doing he was disgusting she was fifteen!_

 

Even if it took him longer and longer to disentangle himself each time.

 

.0.

Em sometimes wondered if Arthur knew, exactly, what Em really wanted when he kissed her goodbye and she fisted her hands in his shirt to keep him from politely disengaging, or when they were in his house and she crawled into his lap and they made out until he would abruptly dump her off his lap and make some excuse about his roses or his scones and hurry off.

...well, maybe he knew about _those_, since she'd get some kind of aborted lecture on how she was really too young for all this and they should stop seeing each other on the sly, at least until Em pouted and said something about who else would ever put up with his terrible cooking and unsociable hermit habits and- and-

Didn't he know how much she _wanted_ him? It had snuck up on her out of nowhere, scorching at her veins: one moment she had liked him as much as she'd ever liked anyone, and the next she'd wanted to make every bit of him hers, from his smiles to his sadness to his frankly disgusting scones, loved teasing his expressions from his stiff upper lip, loved needling him to watch him betray his own want for her. It made her leash herself back, as strictly as an unruly dog, and let herself go, to see how far she could push him and terrified of a day she might push him too far.

Emily wanted _everything_.

He spoke to her so sweetly, and all she wanted was to hear him scream. Metaphorically. She hoped.

But it wasn't as though she could, exactly, _force_ him to do something illegal. He was too prickly for jail. Too impressionable. Arthur'd take a bitch and with her luck, that tramp would be prettier than Em was, and then he'd get _attached_ and they'd do things like getting matching prison tats and-

No, it was obvious! Em had to offer herself to him. She didn't actually think he'd refuse her. It would be perfect. It would be romantic. It would be love-affirming.

It would be her _birthday present_.

 

.0.

"Gilbert!" Em hailed the older boy with a shout that screamed over half the field. "Get over here, fucker, I want something."

"Should have guessed, she-male," he said, amiably, taking, as usual, his own sweet time crossing the field from his smoking-spot. Em smiled, and told him to go do something unpleasant to himself. Gil laughed.

These pleasantries over with, Em got down to business. "All the stuff on this list," she said, handing him a piece of folded paper.

He took one look at it, and said, "Oh, God, you have a boyfriend."

"Shut up!" hissed Em, frantically looking around. No one was within earshot, or even out of class, since Em had skipped out of her last class early 'for Captainly preparations' and Gilbert never went to class anyway (he got top marks. No one knew how). But one never knew.

Gilbert squinted at her. "Who'd hook up with you?" he said. "You're like a raging ball of unstoppable crazy bitch."

"I know your girlfriend is, but what am I?" Em shot back. Honestly, go after a gang with your stick once in a heroic temper and you'd never be allowed to forget it.

"Planning a hot night?" said Gilbert, then pulled a face as what he had just said dawned on him. "Geeze, you're the same age as _my baby sister_, you shouldn't be doing this kinda stuff."

"I don't want to hear that from the guy who introduced my brother to pot," said Em. "And anyway, Bette might come to you too, someday, with this kinda stuff, and you wouldn't turn _her_ away, now would you?"

"Vargas's a good catholic boy," said Gilbert, still squinting suspiciously at her. "Bette ain't got nothing to worry about in that quarter except maybe killing Vati when he realises his angel wants to marry an Italian. But you-"

"Look, can you get it for me, or what?" Em demanded. Just because his darling baby sister was in her class and he'd had a massive crush on Elistaveta, a big sister if there ever was one, Gilbert had decided that he was, to some extent, responsible for every single 'cute little chickie' at the girl's school. Usually, this meant responsible for getting them contraband, which he was all too happy to do.

Em didn't want to think about trying to get what she wanted on her own. Her age would only be the smallest barrier. She didn't need word getting out about her and Arthur: he'd flee like a startled rabbit and she really couldn't have that.

"Gil, pleaaaaaaaaaaaase," she whined. It always threw him off when she acted like a little girl, and it did so now. "It's for my birthdaaaaaaaaaaaaaay."

"Look, fine," he said, shifting uncomfortably. "Your birth- shit, you're gonna be legal. Does your boyfrie-"

"Shut up and get me my shit, Gil," said Em, then hugged herself in glee.

.0.

  
The weekend rolled around and Em let herself into the house, walking up the path to the house surrounded by a virtual jungle of an English garden gone nuclear, mapped out with the exacting precision of a man who has too much time on his hands and a mind that might have organized empires.

She had a theory that the white rose bushes had allied with the petunias against marigolds, and were likely to be ambushed by the hydrangea federation in surprise attack before the end of summer, but Arthur just laughed whenever she reported battle movements to him.

It was cool. She liked to see him laugh, and then they'd reconstruct and refight battles for his 'research' which Em thought was really excuses for him to laugh manically and play with dolls.

She won a third of the battles, generally, initially through their 'blind ~~dumb~~ luck' deck, which included options such as 'general's wife has a baby', 'general's mistress has a baby', 'hurricane', 'famine' and 'France runs the fuck away', and then more as she got interested in strategy and bent her (considerable) intellect to decimating her boyfriend's hopes for the glory of the Empire.

Well, it made history _way_ more interesting, anyway. And it always threw off opposing teams when Em named hockey running patterns for historical battles.

"Such a dork," said Em fondly, as she let herself in.

"I thought I heard someone committing crimes against the language," said Arthur from his study, coming out to meet her, taking off his glasses.

"I wasn't saying anything," Em said, and couldn't hide her smile, a stupid soppy sloppy grin that spread all over her face and felt too large for her head and heart both.

"I could hear you _thinking_ it," he said. "The miasma of bad grammar hangs about wherever you go."

"Well, as long you don't make assaults on my vocabulary," Em laughed, and kissed him.

"I'm _old_," he said into her hair when they separated, voice rough and low and wry. "You'll have to be careful and see I don't expire in the night."

Em put her lips to his ear and whispered, "Inviting me to spend the night?"

End of conversation, damn. "Time for tea," he said, firmly removing her from his person, red to the ears.

"Time for tea," Em agreed mildly. There'd be time for- other things, later. She tucked her hand into his and he squeezed it. He had a soft, soppy smile of his own on, and sunlight was dappling through the windows, and Em thought, _I love you_, and wondered if he knew.

"Your birthday's coming up," he said to her, as he set out the charred hunks he liked to call scones and the considerably better jams he'd bought instead of made. (Em didn't like to think about the time he had tried to _make_ his own jam; the place had smelled of burnt sugar for days and part of the kitchen wall still looked rather as though it had been bombed. The only good thing about all of it was that when she helped to dress his burns, she saw him with his shirt off, when otherwise he wandered around in at least three layers even when at home and in sweltering weather. _Totally_ worth it. Though Em also liked to theorize that the stick up his ass was pure ice, and that also explained why he could have nubile willing not-unattractive teenager on his lap and not nail her like a gallery wall.

...alright, _maybe_ Em was a little tired of only kissing. A lot.)

"What are your plans?" he said, as though it didn't bother him.

Em, of course, saw right through it. "We don't exactly do parties at my house," she said. "For the last few ones, I went out with the girls in town and my uncle foots the bill." She paused. "Bette and Kiko organise it," she said. "I like to show my friends a good time. And I get tons of presents, of course."

"Of course," he said, dryly. "Well, Emily, I- I don't know if you'd want to- that is-"

She cocked her head at him and smiled, the great glorious triumphant smirk that she'd been told was almost a little scary to look at. "I don't spend _all_ day with the girls," she said.

"And that's my cue, I see," he said, and coughed. "What- what do you want?"

The smirk stayed and spread. "To spend time with people I love," she said, then crammed a scone down her throat before she could say anything else _stupid_ and _cheesy_ and uncomfortably, embarrassingly true.

Arthur made a choking noise, and they both downed another lump of charcoal before they felt quite ready to face each other again.

"You can pick me up at from station for dinner," Em said, primly. "I'll get Bette to figure out times and tell you when."

"Whenever you like," he said, indulgently. "Any preferences?"

_Got him_. "Here's fine," she said.

Arthur blinked at her. "Are you sure? It's a special occasion, don't you-"

"I want to eat your cooking," she said, smiling. She really was lucky that in many, many things, Arthur was as thick as a brick. "It's grown on me. Like cancer." She laid a hand on his before he could huff up. "The most important thing is being with you."

His feelings flashed across his face open and easy as signal flags; surprise, pleasure and embarrassment. "Oh," he said, and turned up his hand to twine his fingers in hers. "Oh," he said again, and said, hurriedly, "You- you do know- that I- well, I'm very- very fond of you, Emily. Very, um-"

"Don't hurt yourself, Arthur," Em told him seriously, then laughed, sweet and low and with the happiness she felt bubbling out of her along with it. "I- I love you too."

"Well," he said, and looked terribly pleased. "I'll- I'll make the plans."

 

.0.

 

"Mattie," said Em sweetly, "You'll cover for me tonight, won't you?"

Her brother looked wary, as well he might. "What? Where are you going? You're coming back with us, right?" He looked out the train window. "In fact, you're coming back with us right now. Shocker."

"I'm going to spend the night out," Em explained, with a beguiling smile that did not work on her twin _at all_.

"Are the girls planning something?" he said. "They didn't say anything aboot further plans."

"No, I'm going off on my own," said Em airily. "I just need you to cover for me if he asks."

"Going off on your own."

"Yup."

"Doing what?"

"It's a secret," said Emily, eyes sparkling. "If all goes well, I'll be back by tomorrow morning. Or afternoon." She hugged herself, smiling dreamily. "Of course it all depends."

"You're planning to spend the _whole night out_?" said Matthew, disbelievingly.

"Yup."

"...Em, seriously, what crazy thing are you thinking about doing now?"

She tossed her bright head. Part of the day out with Toria and Bette and Kiko and Lili had involved some esoteric makeover in the morning, and Matthew had to admit that Emily was looking very pretty and utterly smug and overflowing with her general air of running roughshod over everyone else in the way of what she wanted, and looking fabulous while she did it. "None of your business," she said.

"I'm your brother," he pointed out. "Technically everything you do is at least partly my business."

The look she gave him was burning, burning blue, cold and furious. "This isn't. And if you decide to make it your business, Mattie..." she let her voice trail off, and Matthew decided it wasn't worth getting in the way of Em's temper. It might even teach her some kind of lesson, even if Em's successes drove her onto more mad schemes rather than not.

"Fine, _fine_," he said, and tossed his own head so that he didn't have to look at the sweetness coming back into her face like a scar.

.0.

  
Gilbert was waiting in his car with Natasha, his girlfriend, looking, as she always did, infinitely patient and smiling. They weren't actually making out, something for which everyone else was grateful: neither of them seemed to have ever internalised the meaning of 'shame' or 'not mentally scarring others'. It was his practice to bring up Kiko and Bette to the school whenever they stayed out, rare enough that his concern was received with gratitude. Any boy, incidental or no, could damn well walk back rather than have an excuse to press up to his precious baby sister.

Natasha thought it was darling and gallant. Em thought it was sensible, for girls as totally shy as Bette and Kiko, and rather approved. Everyone else thought he was a crazy bastard, who just did it to be an asshole.

Em, who didn't stay, usually caught a cab with Matthew. Not tonight, though. Gilbert nodded to her and passed her the black paper shopping bag, saying, "Happy birthday, you crazy amazon."

"Cool," said Em, resisting the urge to check it for everything. She did _not_ need someone asking her or him what was in the bag.

"We'll see you on Monday, Em," said Kiko softly, and Bette nodded even as she darted glances to Feliciano giving Matthew one last exuberant hair-ruffling.

"'Course," Em said, and hugged them both. They waved goodbye, all of them, and soon Em and Matthew were alone at the station.

"Now what?" said Matthew, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Now you can piss off," said Em. "My ride's over there, probably sulking or something. And remember, I'm safe at home."

"If you get murdered tonight for being stupid," Matthew said, "I want you to know that _I told you so_."

"Look, you've got my number, I'll text you in the morning or something so you'll know I haven't died. Stop being a wet blanket," Em threw over her shoulder as she began walking to the side of the parking lot, where there was indeed a car idling. She stopped with her hand on the door and glared at him, making a shooing motion.

Matthew rolled his eyes and started towards the cab queue. When he next looked back, the car was peeling out of the lot, with his sister presumably within.

_God_ he hoped she knew what she was doing. But then again, Em always thought she did.

 

.0.

Arthur watched with no small amount of amusement as the disgruntled boy turned away from Emily's doubled-barrelled stare and she hurtled herself into the car so fast she nearly closed the door on her own arm.

"Nosy bastard," she said by way of explanation.

"Matthew, I presume," he said, and knew that she could hear him laughing in his voice.

(She shivered, and thought, Does this man not know he is _sex on legs_ OMG.)

"Yeah," she said. "He's annoying."

"Siblings usually are," he agreed. "How was your day?"

"Very domestic _and_ an astute swerve of subject," said Em. "I approve. Pretty awesome: we got styled then met the boys for lunch then wandered around acting like bigshots and having a good time."

"That's exactly what my agent said the last time I talked to her," said Arthur drily. "Only substitute networking for bigshots and alcoholism for having a good time. I wondered why you looked so-"

"So?" Em prompted him.

"Glamorous," he said, like he'd been thinking of it the whole time, and looked like he did whenever he puzzled over passages that didn't seem to fit and _got them_, so Em could tell he wasn't just saying it.

"Have you secretly been suave all this time and I just never noticed?" said Em, who couldn't stop the smile spreading over her face; _glamorous_, like a movie star.

Like an adult.

"Only until midnight," he said, pulling into his street and parking. "After that I, ah, turn back into a boring stodgy old man. Like a reverse Cinderella. But tonight..." he let the words trail off as he got out and stalked around to open the door for Emily; she watched him move almost greedily, there was always something so sure about him, so centered.

"Tonight," he said, taking her hand and placing it on his arm as he led her to his gate, "You're the princess here."

Em looked at his garden and laughed even she went breathless with a kind of wonder: there were lights strung through the genteel wilderness and the flowers were, almost unexpectedly, blooming madly, the general effect was rather like that of a fairy garden.

"Christmas lights in July," she said, even as she turned her delighted face up to his to see the look she knew would be there, a sort of embarrassed pride and trepidation that was hers, all hers. "It's beautiful."

Arthur cleared his throat. "I. I realise the standard reply to that is 'so are you', but you know I abhor a cliché." He paused. "Although it is true."

"I don't think lampshading quite absolves you of the stereotype," said Em.

"The depths to which I sink for romance," he agreed. "Um. _Do_ you like-"

"I love it," Emily assured him.

He smiled. "Oh, excellent," he said. "Do wait right there." Saying this, he located a little switch and pressed it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMILY abruptly came on, arranged laboriously over the entire garden. Lights flashed in all three primary colours and quite a few secondary ones. It was bright. It was huge. It was gaudy. It was over-the-top.

"I _love_ it," said Emily, sighing rapturously as she promptly took out her phone to record it in her heart forever.

"One day, God willing, my garden will forgive me," said Arthur. "I'd offer to serenade you at this point, but I would never forgive myself."

Em smiled her glorious grin and pulled him down into the kiss she rather felt he'd neglected to greet her with. "I thought of better things you can do with that mouth," she whispered to him when they separated.

"You're the only person I know who can make cliché sound that good," he sighed into her hair. "Come on, let's go in, I think my poor garden's suffered enough."

.0.

  
Dinner managed to be considerably more edible than Em had expected, largely due to the lights having taken up so much of Arthur's time that he'd had to assemble a meal rather than cook it, cutting drastically down on the amount of carbon present. Em thought about Arthur wrestling with cables out in his precious, elegant garden, airing his impressive collection of curses and bad language and probably getting weird looks from his neighbours, and giggled.

Arthur caught the edge of it, mock-scowled at her, and said, "And just what is so amusing, young lady?"

Em stuck her pinky out of the hand holding her sparkling apple juice ("If you think you're ingesting one drop of alcohol in this house, Emily...") and said, with an approximation of his accent, "Bloody posh, innit?"

He made a face rather like that of a disgruntled cat. "God, don't even try, Emily," he said. "Mind you, it's getting rather late... I'll send you back."

"No!" said Em, then bit her tongue. He looked at her curiously. "I mean, no, no, I- I, um, have something to show you. Er. After I use the bathroom."

"By all means," he said. "I'll start cleaning up."

Em smiled, drifted out, and raced for the bag. She lifted out a silky handful and smiled. She wasn't going back tonight. And _thank God_, Gil had come through. She was going to have to remember to be nice to him, or at least to stop telling Toria where he and Natasha snuck off to.

This was going to be a night Arthur would _never forget_.

.0.

  
Arthur meticulously folded the containers and loaded the china into the dishwasher. He was surprised to find that he... felt good. He'd done something ridiculously stupid and cheesy and completely unlike the person he had been or the person he was now, and he was being reckless and dumb, and he felt... happy.

Emily made him happy.

She was loud and blunt and she'd come crashing into his life like a runaway truck, pushing her opinions on him and invading his home with her casual disregard for propriety and her own safety. Emily, who was bright and beautiful and intelligent and sensitive in unexpected, exceptional ways, the exact type of person he'd have hated at her age, and had.

Emily, who had come into his life and made herself a part of it he couldn't bear to lose.

Arthur had thought he was happy, with his books and his writing and living alone without the phonies in the industry bothering him and spending his days between writing and reading and leading a pleasingly soft, domestic life. He'd reached a balance, and he'd loved that balance.

Emily had shattered that equilibrium, and Arthur had never known what happiness was until her.

He wondered, sometimes, how long they could keep up this thing that wasn't really a charade and couldn't be a relationship. He knew that he shouldn't be sneaking around with a girl half his age, and worse, a teenager who should have been in school living her life without falling into the hypothetical clutches of Arthur's entirely unhypothetical fascination with her.

Except that it was extremely difficult to say no to Emily, especially when she was warm and soft and melting in his arms, in his house, where no one had to know and she held onto him like she never wanted to let go, when she- no. Arthur knew that he was only allowed to keep being with her because he was careful, so careful, even when he wanted to give himself up to her hands and her mouth and-

"Arthur?" said Emily, and he turned around struggling to smile reassuringly and froze in his tracks.

She was dressed in some- _thing_ that was all of a few scraps of frothy red lace and silk that shone in the light of the candles he'd set up for the table, and while the expression fell off his face she thrust out her chin and said, half-defiantly, half-throatily, "It's my birthday, Arthur."

-and oh, _God_, the sweetness of her hopeful eyes, and the trust.

“If you use the ‘if you loved me you’d do it’ line on me,” said Arthur, distantly. “I do believe I will laugh myself absolutely sick and then possibly cry a little in my soul.”

“I don’t see why you have to be such a drama queen about this,” Em said. “And it’s not- I _do_ know you love me, you- you said.”

There was a moment of awkward silence, and during this Arthur was drinking in the sight of Emily’s really beautiful body despite the unhappiness on her face, the long gradual gradient of golden tanned skin up her limbs, paling out as his gaze climbed; the real honest-to-goodness _curves_ of her body: she’d had them when they met, he’d _known_ that (damn his own sinful eyes!) and she’d hidden them under baggy jackets and sports clothes and the demure layers of her uniform because of the adolescent’s discomfort with their own body, they were deliciously, blatantly on display now, ripe and (God help him) willing, he felt as though he would so very much like to touch and kiss her all over until she was gasping because he wanted her and she was so _beautiful_ and-

And he _did_ love her, if this was what love was: if it was thinking about her all the time and missing the sound of her voice (or her terrible music) floating through his house, if it was- was turmoil and terror and tension and tenacity.

“It’s not about- about _that_,” said Emily. “I- I just-“ her big blue eyes met his and widened even further, he _had_ to understand, he _had to_. “I just want you, that’s all.”

Arthur swallowed. She watched his throat bob up and down, wanted to kiss and bite it and- and- didn’t he _want_ her? Had she been wrong, had she been just, just a child to him, all this time, all those days, he didn’t like her _that way_ and just hadn’t wanted to embarrass her-

What would she do if he still didn’t want her, after all this? How could she change his mind?

“Emily,” said Arthur, who had gathered his resolve. “Emily, I- I don’t want- want-“

“Me?” she said, and bit her cheek hard, she couldn’t- she didn’t- she hadn’t meant to say it, hadn’t meant to-

“To take advantage of you,” he said. “I- don’t you think about the age gap? Don’t you notice it? I’m _twice your age_, and your age isn’t all that high, either, and it’s not- it’s not _nothing_, Emily, it’s not something that goes away or something we can ignore.”

“Isn’t it?” whispered Em, mouth dry, “And- I know it isn’t, Arthur, I know that it makes me feel like a heel to be sneaking around my family and I know you hate it when you can’t take me out and I hate that we can’t even hold hands in public without people looking and wondering about us- about you. Because you’re always going to feel like this is more your fault than mine, you’re just that- that- _old_.” Her breath was hot on his face, and she was gasping out her words, and holding onto him, hard and unyielding, she was strong, he realised suddenly, he could see the muscles moving in her arms and could not suppress the thought of them gliding under her bare skin. “But it’s not- I’m the one who’s here now. _I_ orchestrated this. _I_ was the manipulative one. You didn’t seduce me into here. You didn’t lie to me. What do I have to say to you to convince you you’re not going to be in the wrong?”

“There’s nothing,” he said to her, said into her hair, said even as he pulled her close to him. “There’s nothing that makes me any less guilty in any of this. _About_ any of this. You don’t- you’re young and smart and beautiful and you shouldn’t even be here.”

“I want to, though,” she said, fiercely, “I _want_ to be here, and I _want_ to be with you, and I want- I want- Don’t tell me that I don’t _understand_, don’t act like I don’t want to. Because I want you for keeps, for myself, and I want you for always and- and- do you want me,” she whispered to him, “Arthur, please, forget all that stuff about- about what _should_ be right and everything else _should. Do you want me too_?”

“I- Emily, I-“ and she pressed herself against him and looked him right in the eyes and said “_Do you_,” in a voice little more than harsh breath, and he heaved in his shattered breath and let out past her ear and said “Yes,” against her lips.

.0.

  
His kiss this time was a flood of the passion and desire she'd only tasted in tiny portions before: she went momentarily weak and clung to his shoulders, his crisp (neat-freak) shirt rough against her bare skin as she pressed up and sighed deliciously into his mouth.

"If we must do this," he said, voice unsteady as he pulled himself from her, "We are doing this at least somewhat properly."

Emily cuddled herself against him. "I got birth control," she said. "We're good for that."

"Of course you did," he sighed. "How on earth did you get it? I hardly think you just walked up a counter and got- good lord this is quite a selection."

"Be prepared!" said Em, "I had a friend pick 'em up for me. And-" Arthur lifted a pair of fur-lined handcuffs out with a rather stupefied air. Em blushed. "And, um, other sundries."

Arthur regarded the innocent little paper bag with suspicion. "I- won't ask," he said. "I- I don't even- is that where you got _that_ from?"

"I ordered it," said Em cheerfully, stroking the silk in a way that made Arthur swallow, "Isn't it nice?"

"...I refuse comment."

Em pouted, and folded her arms under her chest, promptly tripling her cleavage.

"...yes," he said, eyes firmly stuck on her chest, she'd always been good about not putting on anything too daring because it 'upset' him, but ha, she'd _known_ he was a perv, "Yes, yes, very nice."

"Show me," she purred.

He jerked, laughed, and slid his hands up from her waist slowly- HER FATS!- cupping one breast in his hand and weighing it, brushing his thumb over the nipple hardening under the top, over and over again until Em felt unbearably sensitive in just that one spot, and she looked at his smile, smug and slashed with his eyes so dark and secretive and intimate, and she almost hit him. "Very nice," he said in that rough-edged whisper, and kissed her, and Emily forgave him at once.

.0.

  
They made it to his room and Em loved Arthur's room, in a sort of his-space kind of way, it smelled of him and looked like it absolutely didn't belong to him and looked like it absolutely did, all dark wood and easy, straightforward luxury hinting at what Em liked to call the restrained hedonist in an otherwise mild-mannered writer.

Also, he had a pointlessly huge, really comfortable bed. Em had shamelessly taken naps in it plenty of times. Unfortunately, he'd never been overcome by the sight of her sleeping face, or at least she couldn't prove it.

Em crawled onto it and posed artlessly as he undressed and folded his clothing carefully in a way that would have been insulting if it wasn't so hot. If while he was fiddling with the clasp on his watch he didn't watch her under half-lidded eyes, complicating the process exponentially, or if while he pulled off his sweater vest and unbuttoned the snow-white shirt he wasn't blushing as Em tried very hard not to wolf-whistle and tracked every inch of exposed skin.

He drew off his belt (For an evening basically at home, honestly) and much to Em's immense disappointment did not then reach for his zipper but climbed on with her and- kissed her again. Much better, though not enough.

She slipped her hands down his body, his skin, so warm, and tugged at his belt loops in a silent question.

"Patience," he said. "You young people really do need to learn it." He picked up her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers, and Em was squirming already, why was _everything_ he did so hot, and he smirked. "Consider this an object lesson."

He started to kiss and nibble his way down her hand and up her arm, the webs of her fingers, the outside of her elbow, over her mostly bare shoulder and his lips trailed up the side of her neck, drawing away when she tried to turn and kiss him, until he sucked lightly at the tip of her ear and she was suddenly in his lap, sprawled, the trail of his mouth tingling and he wasn't even doing anything, not really, his hands just stroking her limbs lightly and Em was-

Comfortable. She hadn't known how much of the lurid sex scenes in movies and novels was true or exaggerated, or the whispered tales or boasts of her schoolmates, but this was nothing like either. Exciting, certainly, but also relaxed and soft and just a little infuriating, and she realised that she wasn't nervous any more.

"You're sneaky," she said to Arthur, who with a kind of studied insouciance had slipped the straps off her shoulders and was pointedly not going lower than the dips and rises of her collarbone, even as his hands rubbed slow circles over her hips and thighs (her FAAAAAAATS, she cried internally, but a particularly teasing nip silenced that) and she lifted her chin for easier access.

"Am I?" he said, and now he was kissing her again as his hands slid under the silk of her top and onto the warm silk of her skin, rough and purposeful and she moaned into his mouth as his fingers found her nipple again and teased it.

"You're going too slow," she said, somewhat unsteadily, and made to pull the clothing off entirely. He tutted and laid her on her back, dipping his tongue into her navel as she struggled with the new angle.

"Not everything can be all your own pace, Emily," he said, and once again resumed the slow task of tasting every inch of skin without even appearing to look at her breasts. Emily endured quietly this time, not even poking or pushing against his hands on her wrists at her sides. "How obedient," he laughed, and Em glared at him but lost it in the shock of him languidly rolling the neglected, sensitive nubs with his tongue on one side and his fingers on the other. She gasped, and felt him smile against her breast, his nose- even his damn NOSE, for crying out loud- gently rubbing against her softness as he moved his head.

"Tease," she accused him, even as she brought up her hands to sink into his hair and over his shoulders and he let her, this time.

"Well if at any point you stop enjoying it," he murmured smugly, and transferred his attention to the other side.

When she was whimpering gently and arcing under him, needy and wanting, he let her pull him up into another kiss. God, he'd almost forgotten how much he really, really liked turning his partners into goo, and doing it to Emily, to whom everything was so new and who was so used to taking the lead and making her enjoy every inch of it, every touch and taste and sensation, it was exhilarating in itself.

"Oh, Arthur," sighed Emily. "Make me a woman."

He promptly sat up with an annoyed look on his face.

Em blinked and said, "Oh, god, please don't say using a cliché spoiled the mood. I will kill you."

"I've always hated that line," he said, still with a disgruntled look on his face. "It’s stupid, it doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t belong in a love scene. Why would having sex have any effect on when a girl becomes a woman? It doesn't affect her maturity. It doesn't magically turn her into a functioning member of society, able to take care of herself and those she cares about. Having sex doesn't make her any more of an adult. If any man is gratified by hearing that bit of twaddle, he needs to have his head shrunk."

"Leaving aside that you've clearly thought way, waaaay too much about this," said Em, sliding the surprisingly demure boyshorts off her hips while Arthur was occupied with being annoyed, "I always felt that every time I was with you, I became a little more of an adult."

She coughed and slid her hands over his ribs, following a barbed-wire tattoo with her fingertips, a piece of his past he rarely talked about. He had more. She was looking forward to finding them all. "Not because I was being 'rebellious' or because I was dating someone older," Em said. "But because I always wanted to- to be someone it was okay for you to talk to and be someone who- I _thought_ a lot more. I didn't want to be stupid and childish."

"Saying this in an entirely non-you've-taken-off-all-your-clothes sense," said Arthur, "You're- not a child, Emily. You're intelligent and dependable and- actually a bit scary." He looked down pensively. "I suppose you'll be wanting my trousers off, then."

"I'm told it's integral to intercourse," Em said. "I- I try not to be, you know. I know I'm- pushy. I’ve even- fought with others, over it."

"Do tell," Arthur said, stepping off the bed to pull off his pants and briefs, turning rather pointlessly away from Em as he did.

"Oh, ha, I knew you'd have a tattoo on your ass," she said. "I- I mean- oh, I don't know. I said something stupid and clichéd. Come over here and nail me already. Stop folding your pants, that crease can wait for you to iron it out in the morning." She paused. "Preferably while still naked."

"Oh, ha," he said, but came back willingly enough, pulling her flush against him and kissing her and Emily- Emily wanted to rub herself all over him, so she did.

He groaned. "You are scrumptious," he informed her.

"What does that even _mean_," said Em, moments away from punching him in embarrassment.

"Edible," he purred, and went _down_.

 

.0.

 

Em's head hit the headboard and she squeaked. "Wha-" she said, then stifled herself.

"Guess," he said, to all appearances settling himself comfortably between her legs, and Em nudged him in the ribs with her foot.

"This is so embarrassing," she informed him.

"I'm British," he said. "I find showing my ankles in public embarrassing."

"Ugh," Em said, then peered at him from her prone position. "Does- does it look weird?"

"Unfamiliar," he said, and mock-squinted. "I'll need to time to reacquaint myself, clearly." Em laughed before she could stop herself, and he smiled up at her.

"Do tell me what this feels like, dear," he said, and Emily gasped on the edge of her giggles.

"This?" he said, and oh, Emily felt hot all over again, only more insistent this time, flushes rising all over her skin as he- he- "Oh!" she said, and clutched the blanket.

"No?" he rumbled, breath hot and she- she could feel him talking against her, smiling against her, his lips and teeth and tongu- she tossed her head back again, moaning, "Yes, you idiot, _yes_-"

"Oh you like that?" he said innocently from _between her legs_. "Then, perhaps next-"

Emily _wailed_, and he wasn't pausing to talk any more, just driving her on and higher and hotter, she writhed involuntarily and he held her hips still, as pleasure curled her back and shaped her cries and she felt- she felt- _oh_.

It was like going to pieces and coming back together again, sweetly.

She was dimly aware of Arthur coming up beside her and putting his lips to her ear, murmuring, "Like that?"

She snuggled against him, put her own lips to his ear and purred, "_Much_ better than doing it alone."

"...I'm trying to think of something to say that doesn't sound depraved," he said. His hands, however, said far more than his mouth, running lavishly over her body like he couldn't get enough of it.

"Everything you're saying right now sounds depraved," she said, and not too subtly slid her hand down to wrap around him, curiously.

"_Emily_," he said.

"My point exactly," she said. "Arthur- I-"

He took the hint and reached for the paper bag and got ready while Emily watched him impatiently. He finished and propped himself over her, peppering messy kisses over her eyes and cheeks and mouth, smoothing her hair away from her face, and said, "Emily- are you-"

"Of course," she said, and bit her lip when he entered her, slowly, gently. It hurt, but in a sort of gonna-be-sore way, and Emily moved her legs and he made a stifled noise and _she_ made a less-stifled noise, and then he was moving in her more surely and gasping her name into her hair and Emily bit his shoulder because it seemed like a good thing to do and whimpering at how it felt, how _he_ felt, and they kissed messily, breaking it on more cries and moans.

"I love you," she said, and then she was coming again and it was as different as the first one had been, and he slid his hand through her hair and moaned, "_Emily_" and came himself.

He held her, after, which was nice even though they were sweaty and a bit sticky, and murmured to her quietly, "I love you too."

 

.0.

Emily woke to the sound of her phone screeching Celine Dion faintly from where she'd left her bag downstairs, and Arthur stirring restlessly in the greyish light of the encroaching dawn stealing in through the skylight.

With a shamelessness born of wanting to go back to bed, Em dragged her naked self out, down the stairs, and growled, "_What_," into the phone. She coughed. Her throat was a little strained.

"Oh, thank God," said Matthew. "I checked your bed, you're _still_ out."

"Obviously," rasped Em. Perhaps more than slightly strained. Screaming in pleasure was clearly not conducive to sounding human the next day. No wonder morning-afters were weird.

"Okay," her brother yawned into the phone. "Fine, you're not dead. Now I can sleep."

"Have you been up all night?" said Em, surprised and a bit guilty. Not a lot, you understand. But a bit.

"On and off," he said. "You're still a girl, you know. Oh, and you owe me."

"...fine," she said, and Matthew hung up.

It was true, what she'd said to Arthur last night. But if she could decide it was worth the risk, and so did he, then it would be worth it, all of it.

She stretched absently and felt the burn of previously unused muscles and the ghost of sensation, recalled that she was standing naked in her boyfriend's living room, and blushed.

She went back up and threw herself into the bed once again, wrapping her limbs around Arthur's warmth and tucking her head into his neck.

He opened a bleary eye. "Go back to sleep," she told him, sleepy herself.

"Mmph," he said, settled himself against her more closely, and obeyed.

Em shivered deliciously and fell into a light doze listening to the steady sound of his breathing.

The rather idyllic morning hardly lasted long. Em had stirred back to waking when the sun started poking her in the eyes, and promptly turned her attention to waking Arthur.

Pleasurably.

Their days continued to pass but with one significant change: Emily was, to put it lightly, insatiable.

Arthur said that it was frankly disreputable, and he felt used.

Emily replied that she'd always wanted him for his body and that it was totally his fault for being such a hot piece of ass.

Arthur had gone pink and snapped that it was practically indecent.

Emily would then usually jump him and show him exactly what indecent was.

...so to speak.

Em had always gone straight for what she wanted, full speed ahead, no head for consequences, and she tended rather to gloss over the details in her haste to hit the goal- the goal in this case occasionally being riding Arthur on his couch, and occasionally being driving him wild enough to make him take her more forcefully than he usually would, until they were all skin and sweat and sensation and the sound of the other's name on their lips... ahem.

And thus, it was no particular surprise that she got careless.

A carelessness that manifested itself, bluntly, when Emily came abruptly short during a mental checklist and realised she was over a month late.

Oh. Oh, _damn_.

The first thing Emily did, naturally, was to get some ice cream. She had been returning home from the school after her practice, ticking off a mental list of things to do, and though she didn't usually buy whole pints of Ben and Jerry's, she rather thought she was due.

Besides, she was eating for two now. Or most likely eating for two.

She didn't quite dare to buy a pregnancy test kit from the store. For one, it was far too close to the school, and she was in uniform. For two- it would have made her situation real in a way Em didn't quite think she could bear it to be yet, or at least until she thought out about it a bit more.

They'd just finished a round of tests. Emily had put her first irregularity of her period, slight nausea and general feeling of discomfort down to the stress of watching Bette and Kiko freak out about their own stress, though otherwise she was an offensively hardy creature, and promptly forgotten all about those symptoms in favour of actually studying for and taking her tests. Not that she'd given up her weekend visits to Arthur's house, of course. Just the phone conversations she usually had with him every night. That was good, he wouldn't be expecting anything, she could be alone tonight.

Just her and Ben and Jerry. Oh, and probable-Baby.

If she thought about it, it didn't surprise her. She and Arthur had been having fairly regular, mostly unprotected sex for at least two months before Em could remember any symptoms, and they were both young and healthy and apparently, fecund.

Halfway through Yes, Pecan, Emily looked down at her belly and said, "I'm going to get fat."

The pint seemed to say to her, yes, if you keep shovelling me down like that. Did month-old foetuses have sentience yet? Features? Feet? If it did, it wasn't saying anything.

"Quiet," she told the ice cream severely, and shouldered on through icy creamy goodness.

What would she do? Well, Arthur would have to be told- she thought she might have a fair idea of how he'd react. Before she began to show, she'd have to say something to Uncle Francis and Matthew. She needed to get an actual test, too, and a check-up. She needed to read up on what actually happened during a pregnancy, since she mostly had the rather vague idea that you got the weird urge to eat the furniture or something, and then spent all your time throwing it up.

She had to- she had to-

Emily thought, just for a second, about an abortion, a surgery, this early on fewer complications, all the problems that were piling up in her brain going away- and knew that she couldn't, she couldn't, knew that she never would.

She might be only sixteen and probably not fit to be anyone's mother. If her circumstances were different, then Em might have made a different choice- but she _was_ young, and healthy, and aware that she had more options to choose from than most. Her uncle was hardly going to turn her out of the house. Arthur (please) wasn't the sort of person to abandon her, for the sake of his stiff upper lip if (please) nothing else.

What would her friends think? She'd never even told them she was seeing someone, though she thought Kiko rather guessed that she hadn't stopped bothering that author, but not that they'd started dating. Em hadn't exactly had plans, or anything- but she'd had the same mutable future of graduation and university and at least a fledgling career before settling down, and now it was uncertain and strange.

She put her hands on her stomach again, and tried to feel something besides endless nervous calculation. Wasn't there supposed to be some rightness to being pregnant? Some inner glow or heartbeat or feeling of primitive fulfillment? Weren't her emotions supposed to be in turmoil? Should she be crying?

Well. She had upwards of seven months to figure out how she felt about this baby- she couldn't quite think _her_ baby, when she didn't even know if she would keep it. It could wait until at least the next pint of ice cream.

She was going to have a baby, and she didn't know what to feel.

.0.

  
Em woke up and marveled that the world seemed not to have changed. She sat up and noted the ridiculous sickly feeling she’d dismissed as nerves and stress washing over her. Well. She wasn’t going to give into it. She’d never put up with anything like this in all her years. Some light stretches and a few jedi mind tricks later, she felt much less likely to throw up. Her body wasn’t going to turn against her like this.

Except it already had.

Em bit down hard on her toothbrush. She certainly wasn’t going to indulge in maudlin thoughts, either. Since (If, oh, please, if) she’d made a mistake, she was going to have to face up to it.  
Arthur. She had to tell Arthur. It would need- it would need to be face-to-face, even though it was a weekday.

She had to go to school.

God, she hadn’t even started thinking about school, about whether they’d even let her stay, let alone graduate, what she would do about university, about- no. She was running ahead of herself, it wasn’t as though- as though- what?

Did she even know what to do? Why was she even trying to pretend- pretend that everything would be alright, that things wouldn’t change, that she could- she could-

She had to go to school.

Normalcy continued to exist through the morning and afternoon. Kiko seemed to think that Em was not entirely herself, but concluded that it was the nerves that Em had been complaining of for the last week. Em looked at her and didn’t know how to say that nerves were the last thing that Em had to worry about. She felt like she was watching a puppet of herself go through her life, and every bit of it was at once easy and alien to her.

This feeling lasted all the way until she knocked on Arthur’s door and saw the half-hidden surprise and pleasure bloom on his stubborn, scowly face. She tried to smile back at him, in the soft way she’d been trying out because it was seriously embarrassing, lighting up like the fourth of July whenever they smiled at each other, the way she felt about him welling out of her like- like- like lava from a volcano, ancient and irreversible. It didn’t work, but well, she tried.

She wanted to ease into it. She knew she had to ease into it. It wasn’t the sort of thing you dropped on someone’s head like a brick, it was something that required tact and patience, and they both had to keep their heads.

“I’m pregnant,” she said, baldly, without even a hello.

Arthur blinked. He had the sense not to choke out a _really_, but his eyes were incredulous enough as he looked at her, and Emily saw in him the same damming realisation that she herself had come to, that they’d simply been careless, been stupid, and there was nothing more to be said, no one to blame, not even each other.

“Oh, Emily,” he said, after a few more moments of her watching his thoughts chase each other over his open face. Her mouth was suddenly dry and she felt light-headed, she didn’t know what to say she didn’t know what he meant, what he felt say something say something more say something please-

He reached out and pulled her into his arms; his fingers brushed her face and came away wet with tears she hadn’t known she’d been crying. “Emily?” he said, hesitant, _anxious_, and Emily came back into her body with a vengeance.

She stiffened, feeling his arms around her and wanting badly, so badly, to trust in him and just _trust him_ and he said, “Emily, love.”

“But-“ she said, and her voice broke on a sob, she was sobbing, she realised, and had been for a while, “But a _baby_ Arthur I can’t have a _baby_ I’m too young and I don’t know anything about babies but it would be made of us I can’t kill it and already I don’t want to give it away but _I’m too young_ and it was stupid, it was so stupid of me to get careless and I don’t want a reason for our baby coming into the world to be me being stupid, and I don’t want you to think I just did it because i wanted you to stay with me or something and I want to be angry at you but I can’t and I- I- I _don’t know_ anything, I don’t know what to do and I-“

She continued to sob into Arthur’s shoulder, words becoming harder and harder to make out as the tears gathered speed and Emily poured out everything that had been beating at the inside of her head since yesterday, which centred on three things.

_I don’t know what to do._

I’m not ready.

Oh, god, I’m not ready, and I am **so** afraid.

.0.

 

He pulled her inside and somehow managed to make a bracing pot of tea without ever letting go of her, murmuring indistinct, comforting things as Emily, in his parlance, ‘had a good cry’. She needed it. She had looked like death when he opened the door, pale and still and absent; he’d almost been grateful when she started crying, because then at least he had something to react to.

  
His own options he saw as much clearer. Panic had throttled itself in the face of Emily’s distress and dissipated as he made tea and tried to both comfort and decipher Emily’s sobs. She was upset, of course she was upset, but he-

He could hope, and he was hoping. She _was_ too young, too young by far, and he knew that even if she would probably refuse to accept it and she was too young but he- wasn’t. He, at least, was an adult. He could take responsibility, he could- could.

  
“Emily?” he said, and touched her hair.

She sighed and moved into the touch. Then she recalled that she had been crying explosively, and left his arms to pick up a tissue and blow her nose.

“God, that was pathetic,” she said, snuffling. “Can I blame that on hormones? I think we can blame that on hormones, I hate getting weepy like that.” She was talking too loud, she could hear herself, and hated herself for it.

“You had a shock,” Arthur said carefully, watching her. “It’s perfectly natural to be upset, you-“ he coughed, “Emily, have you- given- given any thought to- to-“

“I realised it yesterday,” Em said, and turned to fiddle with the embroidered tissue-box cover. “Took me long enough, I missed it last month but I just thought it was exams and I didn’t think about it at all which is pretty stupid considering we’ve been banging like- like- well, anyway, I realised it yesterday. Then I went home to think. And, god, I scarfed like a whole pint of ice cream, lucky I’m eating for two now or I wouldn’t have any excuse for- for...” Her voice trailed off.

“I’m glad you didn’t do anything rash,” Arthur offered, something that sounded hollow even to him, but Emily was looking away from him again, and the silence weighed heavy on him like a stone.

“...no,” she agreed. “No, I don’t- I can’t be- be rash.”

Arthur took a deep breath. “Emily, Emily, I- I know I may not have completely thought this through, and I want to you to know that I will completely support any decision you make but-“

“But?” said Emily, and he wasn’t scarlet, but oddly determined, his eyes level even as he talked too fast.

“But I would- I would urge,” he said, and reached for her hands. “If you do decide to give up the baby,” he said. “Then give it up to me.”

She recoiled almost instinctively, the intimacy of the gesture too much handle with the thought he was presenting her. “You’re joking,” she said, flatly, without quite knowing why she said it.

“I’m thirty-one,” he said quietly. “Financially solvent. I even live alone. Emily, I have the means and I have the inclination. If I have any say in this at all-“

“You have a _life_,” she threw at him. “You have- you have your writing, your- your-“

“So do you,” he said to her. “You’re young, Emily, you have your future to think of and you can’t throw away your life. I can take the baby, I can- hire a nanny. Read childcare books. Take a sabbatical.” He stared deep into her eyes, and she saw the iron backbone of honour and duty in them, implacable as rock. She saw herself in them, and she looked small and frightened and horribly diminished. “I could take responsibility for the child, Emily. For my child.”

“And where do I come into this picture?” Em said. “Do you just- do you just think that I pop the kid out, hand him over, swan off to this beautiful future of mine? Do you think you’re giving me a _way out_?” Anger was easier on her system than anxiety, and far better than the second of sweet relief she’d felt when he offered it, and then the guilt piling on her head and her heart. He started to say something, and she raised her voice at him. “I’m not- I can take responsibility for my _own_ mistakes, you don’t NEED to act like it’s all your fault here- like I need you to rescue me from the consequences of my own damn folly! You don’t _need_ to offer me what you seem to think is an easy way out!”

“Do you think you don’t need one?” he shouted at her at last. “Do you think that being stubborn and plucky and determined will get you out of this? Having a child is a responsibility! You’re barely a child yourself, you can’t-“

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” she raged at him. “Don’t- don’t _act_ like you can just write me out of your life like that and don’t act like I’d be perfectly happy to write the both of you out of mine!”

He ground his teeth, audibly, and said, “Emily, you don’t- you really don’t understand where I’m coming from here. I’ve _seen_ teenage mothers. I used to know a whole crowd of them, girls who got married young because they got knocked up younger living on welfare and they had-“

“They had _what_,” Emily snarled at him. “No brains? No big strong man to take care of them?”

“They had _shitty_ lives!” he roared at her. “They hated and regretted every moment of it and they hated their deadbeat husbands and they hated their children and they hated _themselves_!”

Emily fell back under the force of this invective. He never spoke about his past. Never. She’d gotten the impression he’d been wild and reformed and couldn’t properly imagine it, but now she could see clearly that maybe his youth had marked him in ways other than his tattoos. Was that really what he thought of her? Was she just- was everything she’d done, they’d done- a _mistake_?

“I don’t want that sort of thing for you,” he said to her. “I don’t want you to end up like those girls, wasting away their lives. It’ll be worse for you,” he said, and Emily wanted to hit him for saying what she had thought herself, “It’s worse for you because you’re already bright and intelligent and that means you have so much more to lose, and you’ve got a choice they don’t have and you should take it!”

“DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO,” she screamed at him. “Don’t you think I know that I’m too young and that I’m lucky to even be where I am? Don’t you think I’d _like_ to have this go away so that I can go back to my life and know how utterly easy it is by comparison?” She caught again on a sob, and the wracked anger fell from Arthur’s face as he moved to touch her again. “But I _can’t_,” she said to him. “I can’t just walk away and pretend this sort of thing never happened. I can’t just- just go off and get rid of something that will grow to become someone. It’s not because it’s convenient. It’s not because it’s easy. It’s because it’s just not what I can do. I didn’t want to get pregnant. But now that I am-“ she gasped for breath, drew it in and stood tall. “Now that I am, I have to deal with it. Don’t run off and make all my decisions by yourself.”

 

"I-" Arthur said, "I- I didn't mean, give up entirely, I meant- sort of-your life doesn't have to change, Emily. I can take care of-"

Emily choked on another sob. "So that's it, then?" she said. "Those are your options to me. Give up my life or give up my baby?" She turned away and hated herself for hoping he'd understand. Hoping that- she was crying again and now she hated that she was doing it in front of him, hated that he could talk so softly and reasonably about cutting her out of a new life he'd start with the baby and all of course for her own good.

Blindly, she started for the door: it might not have been about pride, but Emily found she still had hers after all.

She was grateful that he followed her to the door, still being so damn _reasonable_, because at least he cared that much, even if he didn't _understand_.

"Emily, you're not listening to me!" he shouted at her, finally, at the gate, she knew she'd be safe past it, he wouldn't chase her down the open street and she could run faster than him anyway, and she-

"Emily, you don't _understand_!" he almost wailed, face imploring, half-reaching, half-blocking.

"Lotta that going around," she choked out, and she kicked up her heels and ran.

 

.0.

God, but pregnancy was going to be a bitch. The nausea was already getting worse, as though acknowledging it had given it potency and actuality, because on the way back Em had wanted to get a burger to make herself feel better and nearly hurled right there in the street.

But apple pies were still okay, apparently. So she bought six and retired to her room with them and the rest of the ice cream.

Matthew was out and they didn't bother each other much anyway. Francis was deep in design sketches for his newest bit of sculpture and scattering them around the house like footprints, in that you knew he had to be there, but couldn't really find him.

Arthur didn't understand. Or he did, in his way.

The part Emily hated the most, of course, was that Arthur had been eminently reasonable and she _wasn't_ old enough or mature enough to have or raise a child, and on the whole it would be so much better for him to take it and raise it, and for her to wash her hands of this whole mess and- and- go on with her life. He hadn't denied responsibility. He hadn't, as she'd half-feared from watching Kiko's Korean soaps (which Bette loved, for some reason), demanded if the baby was even his. He'd held her and comforted her and made tea and come up with a solution to her problem.

Her problem. Her baby was her problem. Their accident, her mistake.

And what he offered was for it all to go away. She tried to imagine his life with a child and found it incredibly easy- something about Arthur seemed starved for domesticity, a lack he tried to make up with cooking his own (terrible) meals and obsessively cleaning his house and various do-it-yourself projects and even having his own house at all, house and garden that were spaces just for him and Em had always felt a little excited to be included into.

A space for him and a golden-blonde child, gender indeterminate, who'd start out with bright blue eyes that would darken to something almost periwinkle (she'd seen his scant handful of family photographs and his elder brothers had dark, dark blue eyes where he and his sister shared green-) and Emily judiciously edited out the eyebrows and put in a happy little adoring face because who wouldn't adore Arthur, who wouldn't love his silly earnestness and his dedication and the child would learn that from him, most definitely, learn that love could be as quiet and steady and relentless and all-encompassing as the sea.

He'd practically smother the child. It would never want for anything.

Maybe there'd be a picture of her on the mantel, and she'd be Auntie Em, like that harridan from the Wizard of Oz. Maybe sometimes she'd call, after she went away for college and couldn't come down on the weekends. Maybe a baby would finally force Arthur onto facebook, and she could choose especially cute pictures of them as her cell wallpaper so that she could pretend to feel close or involved in their lives while she went to school, went to classes, pretended the baby was her cousin's or something, went out, grew up, all away from them-

A tear leaked out of Em's eyes, and splashed onto the spoon.

Maybe it would be like she'd never had a baby at all.

 

.0.

Arthur made tea. He usually did this. It helped him think. It also had been his 'thing' for quitting smoking, and right now Arthur badly, _badly_ wanted a smoke.

He stared at the untouched cup he'd made for Emily. Her stars-and-stripes mug with the 'Give Me Soda or Give Me Death' written on it on permanent marker just sat there.

Had he really just let her go? But he couldn't have _made_ her stay.

What could he do? Hadn't he offered to do the right thing? He wanted to do the right thing.

He rather thought Emily was just being emotional, but Emily wasn't the _type_ to just be emotional. Sussing the reason for her strange starts and wants was impossible, but once she did want something, there was always a logic to her actions, to her reactions, to her plans.

What had she been objecting to? Did she want to keep the baby, raise it by herself?

It was impossible. Emily had plans, a future, a life. A baby took a lot out of an adult, never mind a sixteen-year-old. Emily knew perfectly well that it wouldn't be the best option for either her or the baby, and she wouldn't choose it, knowing that. If she didn't want to have an abortion, then she presumably meant to give it up for adoption, and who better to take it off her hands than the father? Emily would know all this, and yet she- she-

 

Was it just- him? A life shackled to him just because he was the father of her child, Emily might not- might want that, want _him_-

 

She let him witter on about anything without the slightest word, and she reached for him like he was all she’d ever want in the world.

"I don't know what you _want_," Arthur said aloud, helplessly. He paused, and then reconsidered that statement.

"I don't know how I can give you what you want," he said, then frowned. That was it, wasn't it? What he wanted- what she wanted. And what would be best for all concerned.

His own mad idea growing in his brain, Arthur finished his tea, washed his cup, and then went to make a few calls.

.0.

  
Gilbert thought he had a pretty good girlfriend. Natasha was beautiful, rich, a ballerina, and could disable a man with a rusty pipe in seconds.

He liked that in a woman.

She was even really nice and concerned about the little chickies, always wanting to take care of them and mother them incessantly.

Sure, they turned white at her approach and Gilbert and Natasha themselves used to fight like the dickens at that age, but his _liebling_ only had their best interests at heart. Even Emily, though the damn little horror didn't know how to appreciate it.

At least, not if her struggles when Natasha dragged her away into the bush was any indication.

Kiko and Bette watched with fear.

.0.

Emily kicked, but Natasha, with the ease of very long practice, juggled her, dodged the elbow, and dumped Emily on her ass in the undergrowth. Her bag spilled out next to her.

"You are unhappy, little one," Natasha said.

"Oh for-" said Emily, "You just dragged me off like a safari hunter, you lunatic, of course I-"

"Toria was unhappy that you were unhappy," continued Natasha with her usual combination of serene indifference and indifferent threat, this time to the girl who was the daughter of one the men in Natasha's father's... business. Emily was friends with her. Toria was the kind of friends with Natasha that you are when your father works for one of the most vicious mob bosses in Russia, and he was paying for your education because you were acting as companion to his heir-apparent. Who obviously had to be well-taken-care of. Or someone else would be taken care of. Of course you understand.

_That_ kind of friend.

Natasha was always trying to make this up to Toria, but understandably, she usually failed. Not that she ever stopped trying. Ever.

"Why are you unhappy, little Emily?"

Emily started to answer, but then both their attentions were caught by the...pregnancy kit box...which had just rolled out of Em's bag.

Oh. Oh _shit_.

Natasha's face was wiped very carefully blank. She reached over, seizing Emily's ankle as the younger girl tried to scramble away, and picked it up.

"What was it?" she said.

"What?" said Emily, whose careful plans and well-reasoned arguments and determined resolutions to hold her head high had all gone flying out of her head, which was all PANIC PANIC SHIT WHY HADN'T SHE DITCHED IT ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL EXCEPT MATT HAD BEEN THERE AND THEY WOULD HAVE SEEN ONE IN THE HOUSE TRASH AND SHIT, SHIT, SHE KNOWS SHE KNOWS SHE _KNOWS_.

"Are you pregnant," said Natasha patiently. It wasn't a question, even though it should have been.

"Yes," said Em.

Natasha promptly dropped Em's leg and said something probably entirely unprintable in Russian. Several somethings.

"You are sixteen!" she cried at last in a recognizable language. "Sixteen! ебаться! Who is the degenerate who has done this to you?" she demanded. "You are not seeing any of the boys, we would know."

Her face darkened, and she hissed, "If you have been- been-"

"Oh for- it's not that effing dramatic," said Em. "I've been- seeing someone outside school. None of you know him. I got careless."

"And who is this-" Natasha appeared to consider several words, and then the presumably developing ears within Em, since she’d certainly never minced her language in front of _Emily_. "Someone? Does he know?"

"Yes," Em said.

Natasha did not appear to consider this sufficient, and not for the first time she stared Em down.

"What," said Emily sulkily.

"What is he going to do about it?" said Natasha. "If he is not going to marry you, shall I get someone to break his legs?"

"No!"

.0.

  
"Nice chat?" said Gilbert to Natasha when she and Emily _finally_ sauntered out, Emily composed, Natasha _utterly_ composed in a way that meant she was furious at something. Dealing with Emily always pissed her off in some way.

She gazed at him measuringly. Then pinched his cheek.

"You would never shirk your duties, would you," she said. "No, no you would not."

His laughing protests wafted over to Emily as she marched over to Matthew, kicked him in the ankle to get his attention, and set off home down the street.

"You could _nudge_ someone," said Matt, limping slightly as he ran to catch her up. "Or, you know, call their name, I hear that's good too, since most people don't rely on casual violence for interaction around here."

Emily, unusually, kept silent.

Matthew poked her. In her side, the soft part that anyone who has ever been in any scuffles worth mentioning knows.

She smacked his arm away in one smooth instinctual move, but didn't come after him.

And that was when he knew something was wrong.

So he poked her again.

This time she beaned him with her bag. Luckily, it was after exams, so she didn't have her books _or_ her laptop in there, which would have felled him instantly and made her an only child. "Quit it," she said, irritated.

"You're down," he said. "What's wrong?"

Em pursed her lips.

Matthew waited.

Then she took a quick look around, realised that the road into their neighbourhood was dead as doornails, and said, "Igotpregnant."

"What?" said Matthew. "You got- what." As the words wormed home.

"Pregnant," said Em. "Knocked up. With child. Expecting. Increasing."

"HOW?" demanded Matthew.

She gave him a Look. "The usual way," she said. "Aliens came and impregnated me on the mothership. Or I’m carrying a messiah. You pick."

"I _knew_ you had a boyfriend," he said. "I _knew_!"

Em rolled her eyes. "Yeah, like I was subtle about it," she said. "Anyway, that's it. Now you know. I figured it was better to tell you sooner rather than later."

"Is it someone we _know_?" said Matt, incredulously. "And you- Em, what are you going to do about it, what is your boyfriend going to do, does he even know-"

"He knows," said Em. "I have his input."

"...Em, if that was a joke, it's even more not funny than usual."

"I have his input on what he intends to do about the child," She clarified. "I just haven't yet decided if it's going to be taken into account."

Matthew eyed her. "You're going hyper-rational here," he said. "You know you do this, right? You make up these long complicated logical explanations about why you're doing something and they're always complete bullshit? Because they seem to make sense, and then you poke at them a little and they don't?"

Emily thought of endless hours of lectures on how Natasha was a total bully who should be stood up to on principle when really the older girl mostly just creeped her out and she didn't like how Natasha was just as good at getting her way as Emily was, of pushing her twin brother around or forward when they were tiny when really it was about her and how much better she was at things than he was.  

Of trying a thousand arguments on Arthur, and having it come down to one thing: how much she wanted him, like the sun baking the heat from her lungs.

Of simply, easily, not wanting to give the baby- her baby- up.

(She did know, of course- but she wasn't about to give him the satisfaction, and he grilled her uselessly all the way back.)

 

.0.

Incredibly, amazingly, annoyingly, he was standing by the gate, looking cool and calm and almost something like sophisticated. Almost. Maybe. If you didn't know him. (Emily did.)

Incredibly.

Em spared a moment to be embarrassed that Uncle Francis spewed his sculptures all over the garden- _those_ sculptures, the ones that the sensationalists loved him for- and left the rosebushes to overrun the expanse of it.

Arthur was looking at it like he didn't know to be outraged that it was so badly-tended or grateful that half the statues were hidden from view.

There was a moment. Just a moment. Matthew wasn't in the least stupid. Arthur's car was parked at the side of the road, easily connected with him. Maybe there was something in his face. In hers.

Emily's breath _heaved_ out of her lungs again, like love all over again. Of course he wouldn't give up. Of course he'd be here, trying to save her from herself. He tried so hard, wouldn't take himself off the hook, would find another way to do the Right Thing, and she'd- she'd-

She'd have his goddamn eyes if he tried to force through anything on her, no matter the intention.

And Matthew said, urgently, suspiciously, "Em, Em, is that-"

And Arthur turned and moved towards her, easy as anything, a smile stuttering itself onto his face, ugly, forced, and awkward, "Emily, I-"

Emily's breath shuddered in like a sob.

Matthew takes a moment to remind her that they _are_ twins, after all, by punching Arthur in the face.

And it comes out like a sigh.

.0.

  
"I think that was really melodramatic and kind of ridiculous," said Emily as Arthur staggered back but didn't fall, and even better didn't fling one back at Matthew.

"Yes, like you didn't enjoy that," said Arthur. "How are you, Emily?"

"Quite well."

"Wait, wait," said Matthew. "Em, was I- this _is_ your boyfriend, right?"

Emily and Arthur looked at each other.

"Until further notice, I guess," said Emily, shrugging.

"Gratifying," remarked Arthur, after a short while. "You've-?"

"Just him so far," she said. "I thought it was time."

"I should say so," he said.

"I don't get the two of you at all," Matthew said. "This is the guy who's knocked you up?"

"Regrettably," said Arthur, and Matthew tried to punch him again.

Emily could see how, to someone else, that would come off as a grade-A asshole remark. But Em could tell he wasn't aiming at her- he was aiming at himself, and it was all in the way he was holding himself, stiff and poised and uncertain around the edges, peering at her under his lashes, a cat who would just about condescend to be loved, and she wanted to pet him. But why was he here?

And, wow. Matt was really growing a temper.

"Don't try that again, boy," said Arthur, grabbing his arm in a half-dodge half-twist, but letting him go after just twisting enough to prove a point. "I probably deserved the first one. A second one won't be free."

Emily tutted. Matthew, who in fact had two centimeters and perhaps fifteen kilos on Arthur, held his arm and looked shocked.

(And, yeah. Totally kind of hot, especially with him all wrapped up in his jacket and tailored pants with a _vest_. A _vest_, for crying out loud.)

"You don't know anything about aiming a punch at someone's face," said Arthur, almost apologetically.

"Okay, I take it back," said Matthew. "Suddenly I can totally see how you two hooked up."

"Shut up," Emily said to him. "You- you just here to school my brother in fistfighting?" said Emily, turning to Arthur and crossing her arms.

"No," he said, hesitated. "Emily, I want to talk to you."

"Oh, God, Em, you let him call you Emily," muttered Matthew. “You never let anyone call you Emily.”

"Shut up," she said to him. "I've already heard what you have to say," she said to Arthur. "I- I think I've told you what I think of it."

"I have something new to say," said Arthur. "Inside, perhaps?"

Em threw him a long stare. Maybe even thousand-yard. "I haven't yet made up my mind about it," she told Arthur. "About- about us. You won't get anywhere by talking to the men in my life," she gestured to Matthew. "They don't get any more say than you do in what I do." She eyed Matthew, then thumped his arm to take the sting out. "Maybe less."

Arthur and Matthew exchanged meaningful looks, which annoyed her. But he’d come, he’d followed, even if Em hadn’t been sure she was walking out of his life. "No doubt," said Arthur. "I have something to ask you anyway. Inside."

_Ask?_ said something inside Emily. She didn't know what to make of it. "Okay," she said, and nodded to Matthew. "Inside."

 

.0.

"Think Uncle Francis is home?" said Em to Matthew.

"-What's your uncle's name?" said Arthur.

"Francis, why?" said Em, swanning past. "I don't think we have tea, can you do without?"

"...no particular reason," said Arthur, putting together name and those queasily familiar sculptures masquerading as art. "And yes, though I don't understand how any reasonable household can function without-"

"You can go now, by the way," Em said pointedly to Matthew, pulling him into the kitchen with her.

"You're sixteen," said Matthew, "And pregnant."

"What's your point, exactly?" said Em.

"My point is what the shit are you going to do?" said Matthew. "And- and- this guy knocked you up, and none of us knew you were seeing him-"

"And he's here, and he wants to talk to me, and it's going to be in private," said Emily. "So shove off."

Matthew crossed his arms. "This is a public part of the house."

"I could always take him to my room and lock the door," said Em.

"Your room is a pigsty," he pointed out.

Em crossed her own arms, and narrowed her eyes. "I'll just do something to distract him from the mess," she said. "It's not like I can get pregnant _again_."

"Oh, God," said Matthew disgustedly. "Have your privacy. _I'm_ going to- to- to google statutory rape."

"I was sixteen, not jailbait," Em said. "Shove. Off."

 

.0.

 

Emily was pouring out water, and then, abruptly, realised what she was doing, cursed herself, and peeked back out into the living room. Arthur looked uncomfortable there. It was ultramodern, clean, smooth, metallic, and it basically looked like no one lived there, because no one really did. Emily and Matthew, when they were home, alternated between their rooms and the (considerably more cluttered) kitchen. Uncle Francis gravitated between several artistically inclined rooms, at least one of which, as far as Emily was aware, was filled with nothing but those surprisingly many pieces deemed too inappropriate for the garden- which was saying something.

Sometimes Emily and Matthew heard about the supposedly hedonistic life he'd led before he'd been landed with a pair of kids, usually from the invariably lovely guests who sometimes wandered out of those rooms dressed only in scanty robes.

They really couldn't see any difference.

Arthur's house was way smaller and much cozier and filled with knick-knacks and handicrafts and the occasional painting of fairies doing something mystical.

Emily liked him better there. There was a reason she'd started spending all her time over there, and it was all centered on Arthur, eyeing the painting over the disused fireplace with a look of somewhat dawning horror and recognition.

Why had he come? She'd walked out- in tears. What could he possibly have more to say to her? 'I've decided you're unfit and I want to sue for custody, I thought you should hear it from me rather than my lawyer?'

It was alarmingly plausible.

It sent her right back out into the living room.

She crossed her arms. "So. Talk."

"How are you doing?" he said, politely.

So damn politely, like they were strangers.

"Okay, I guess," she said. "You?"

"I-" he cleared his throat, "I- I've spoken to some associates, about the legal matters, and I really felt that we should do this properly, that is, observing the right formalities and such-"

Her heart dropped into her stomach. He _was_ going to take it- the baby, _her_ baby- away with him after all, he was just going to bring more of his logic to the table and- and- even if it was right, then why did Emily feel like gasping for air?

"Optimally," Arthur was saying, as the world tilted crazily around her, "I would first speak to your guardian about this, but- um- perhaps that might not be quite the thing. And- therefore, I am taking this to you, Emily."

And- hand to his pocket, knee to the carpet, taking her hand in his; her left hand, and a ring in a velvet box. It took her a few moments to work out exactly what he was on about, talking about the right thing and their relationship in those stilted, formal tones, babbling himself, except that her dignified Arthur didn't know quite how.

"-I, that is, I mean to ask- I am asking, Emily-" he said, and she looked at him, eyes wide and lovely and he thought, _yes, of course, how could there be anything else_, "Would you- would you please do me the inexpressible honour, of being my wife."

_Will you want me, if I throw myself at your feet?_

  
"I'm sixteen," said Emily blankly.

"Yes," said Arthur.

"I'm _six. Teen._"

"There is legal precedent for parental or guardian consent, and frankly precedent for not needing it either."

"I'm sixteen!" Emily cried.

"I love you," said Arthur. "I- I love you, and I want to share my life with you, and I want our child, and- and- I was in this for keeps, Emily. I still am."

"Keeps," echoed Emily hollowly.

Arthur looked faintly embarrassed, which meant he was deathly embarrassed and holding on to his resolve by the skin of his stiff upper lip. "I had a better speech," he admitted. "Only it turned out rather trite and terrible, and any respectable love interest would never have let go by without slapping me and turning me out of the house."

"You don't write romances," said Emily, seizing onto the first coherent thought that drifted into her mind.

"And now you know why," he said. “All sensationalistic criticism aside.”

"The old ball and chain," said Emily faintly. God, why did she say that? Why couldn't she make sense? He was asking her to _marry_ him!

"It's not about-" and she realised he understood her perfectly, and it really only upset her more, "about tying you down, or legalities, or money, god forbid, money-"

Emily actually had quite a good idea of what it was like to manage without money from- well, Toria, Em herself not exactly in the habit of considering money an object to anything she might take it into her head to do- but this was only a fleeting thought in the flurry of ARTHUR. MARRY. ME. MARRIAGE. And Arthur was already continuing.

"Because, I assure you, whatever course of action you do decide to take, I would most certainly accord you the fullest measure of my co-operation and support, but Emily, I-" He took a deep breath, and took her hand in his, staring into her eyes as though he could force understanding through eye contact.

"I want to offer this to you as a promise," he said. "A promise that I love you, that I want to take care of you, that I will do right by you and that I-" he paused, as if at a painful memory. "I'll never let you walk away from me again and not even try to stop you. I- If you let me, Emily, I promise, I will never let you go."

"Oh," said Emily, and she was crying now, almost without realising it, until the world blurred and she had to blink to see him. "A promise," and her hand clutched onto his with her bone-grinding grip. "to- to-"

"To be together," he said. "In sickness, and in health, for richer or poorer- for all those things, I can't remember the rest of it, but I want them too. I want to promise them to you, Emily. I want you to know that if- if you'll have me, I-"

"You're in this," she said, and touched his face, almost wonderingly, "For keeps."

"For keeps," he said, held her hand to his face, kissed the palm. "If- if you'll have me."

She threw herself onto him- collapsed, rather, half-hug, half-tackle, all deadweight that was probably bad for the baby. "Yes," she said, choking on the word, the meaning, the extremely awkward angle that sent them both tumbling to the carpet and knocked the breath out of both their lungs. "Yes, you- you-" she decided idiot was not exactly the right term, and instead pinched him to relieve her feelings.

"Ow," he said, and extracted himself enough to look down on her and smile, his own eyes suspiciously bright. "I- I'm glad," he said, and seemed surprised to say it.

"Yes," Emily said again, or in reply, and leaned up to kiss him before- she felt, most certainly- her heart exploded in joy.

.0.

  
"Do you like the ring?" he said, when he had slid it onto her finger.

"It's pretty," she said. "Would I be more impressed if I knew more about jewellery?"

"How should I know?" he said, and pressed his face into her hair, softly, awkwardly, and was he smelling her, and was that weird or cute or hot? Em couldn't decide. "I picked it because it was pretty."

"Oh, god," she said, suddenly. "We haven't thought this through at all, have we?"

"Speak for yourself," he said, and cuddled her. "Un-unless- Emily-"

"No, no," she said, patting him reassuringly. "I'm clear on that part. I like that part. I love it. I just- since we're going to get married, when should it actually happen? Don't we need like, pre-nups and all that? And I haven't met your family- you've met my brother and all, but I suppose you should meet my uncle as well, and God, aren't weddings supposed to be huge deals? Like, planning and bridezilla and matching flower sets or something-" she stopped.

"Must we?" said Arthur. "I- I think we should do it before you start to show, or at least so that well, the child isn't-"

"Yeah," said Emily. "Yeah, that sounds... good. Doable. I still haven't seen a doctor, I need to go do that. Can we just- something quiet, simple? Then in like three, ten years, when it's stopped keeping us up nights or something and I've lost all the baby weight, we can be ridiculous and pomp and shindig and all that."

"Do babies still stay up nights after they're ten?" said Arthur, somewhat absently. Trust Emily to shift gears at full speed. "None of the baby books so far go past three years old."

"You have brothers," said Emily, not caring now if she seemed stalkerish. "Don't you know?"

"I have older brothers. And one younger one. I think he's actually younger than you, so I wouldn't remember."

"Do you think I should meet your family?" said Emily, who was in fact dying of curiosity the more he refused to talk about them.

"I don't like my family," Arthur said. "Mind you, the feeling's mutual."

"If I meet them when I'm eighteen or nineteen and we lie about it, is it still reprehensible or do I become your trophy wife?"

At this point Matthew chose to poke his head back into the living room, staring down at them still sprawled on the floor, cuddling.

"Hi, Matt," said Em. "I'm engaged."

Matthew's face was a picture of mingled exasperation, disgust, surprise, and...apology? "I'm not sorry," he said, despite all evidence to the contrary, and then Uncle Francis stomped- outright _stomped_, her sensitive, rather silly, artistic uncle with no temper to speak of!- into the room and said, "You disgusting English _bastard_."

Emily, with what she thought was admirable restraint, slunk quietly to the side and pinched her brother until tears came to his eyes.

"Now you've upset him!" she hissed. "I wanted to tell him myself, you- you _rat_. Why'd you tell him?"

"Ow ow ow-" he said. "I- I didn't, I just said that an Arthur Kirkland was here and- Jesus Christ, cut your nails much?- and that he was here for you and he got angry and came down and then you two were rolling around on the floor together and _I'm bleeding Em LET GO_."

A few feet away, Arthur and Francis were shouting at each other in their respective languages, feet planted, faces red, completely incomprehensible.

"I think they know each other," he added, somewhat redundantly.

Emily pursed her lips. "How old is he, again? Uncle Francis, I mean."

Her brother gave her a Look. "You don't know?"

"When have we ever needed to?"

Matthew searched his brain and only came up with early-ish thirties.

Emily stuck her ring hand in front of Uncle Francis's face and waved it hard. In the moment of blinking surprise, she said, "Uncle Francis! I'm pregnant."

Arthur's face was a picture.

"Em," said Francis, visibly forcing himself back into English. "You- you- but- how- who-"

Still smiling her 'This is great news' smile, she jabbed her thumb at Arthur, and said, "Oh, and we're going to married. He just asked."

Francis made a sound exactly like he'd been punched in the gut. Shakily, he reached out his hand, seized Arthur by the front of his collar, and said, "[It cannot be true]," in French.

"I- I-" said Arthur, steeling himself to do unthinkable things: imply he understood French, and apologise to bloody Francis Bonnefoy. "I- it is. I'm sorry."

With what Arthur would later catalogue as typical continental histrionics, and Francis called a natural reaction to the depths of Anglo-Saxon perversity, Francis fainted dead away.

"Oh, honestly," said Emily, "No one would ever guess _I_ was the hormonal one here. Did you bite your tongue?"

"Yes," said Arthur. Francis's hand hadn't loosened it's grip, and when Francis went down, Arthur's chin had collided with the top of the Frenchman's head, just to make things that much more awkward for everyone involved.

"I think he took it well," said Emily.

"You're unbelievable, Em," said Matthew.

"Yes, I know," she said. "Uncle's coming around." She smacked his face, not very gently.

Francis groaned. "Em," he said, "Em, _cher_, please tell me I have just had a terrible dream."

"Nope," she said cheerily. "Haven't you been eating? We have the takeaway menus for a reason, you know."

He waved this away with a paint-stained hand. "It is just that I have been working, and the light has been so lovely this week and Emily, please tell me that what I thought you said isn't true."

"I am pregnant," she said, enunciating slowly. "I have been seeing Arthur Kirkland- for about a year now, I think- and it is his. He has proposed marriage to me. I have accepted. You may congratulate us."

"You are SIXTEEN!" cried Francis.

"That's over the age of consent," she said.

"That _is_ the age of consent," said Arthur.

Francis's eyes took on a wild look. "If I had moved to America instead to raise you, would this never have happened? There you would have had to have been eighteen!"

Emily petted his head in what she clearly thought was a consoling manner. "I only waited that long to proposition him because it would have been awkward otherwise," she explained, with what she clearly thought was a reasonable reason.

Francis glared at Arthur manfully. "I would at this point accuse you of seducing my teenage niece, but honestly, with what? You are a bad-tempered, unsociable and introverted Englishman. You could not seduce a duck. And obviously Emily is beautiful and intelligent and I cannot possibly imagine what an incredible lapse of good taste she must have suffered to- to go to bed with you."

“I’d make a chip off the old block crack right now,” said Arthur almost reflectively, “Only I’m not sure which one of you I’d be insulting.”

Francis and Matthew both looked at Emily. She smiled at them. "I like him," she said. "He's cute."

Their heads swiveled back to Arthur. He flushed. "I- I'm- really- rather- that is to say, I am quite- quite fond of her."

"Oh," said Francis, touched and disgruntled and disgruntled about being touched. "I see it must be love."

 

.0.

"You aren't half a bloody hypocrite, aren't you?" murmured Arthur to Francis while Emily went off to order in something for them all to eat, no one much feeling like going out in all the excitement. "I seem to remember you snogging your way through- everyone, really. And you were quite happy to flaunt your moral degeneracy then."

"None of whom," said Francis, "And I would thank you to remember this in excruciating and exact detail, Kirkland, were _fifteen years_ younger than myself."

Arthur coloured, and mumbled something indistinct.

"Kindly repeat yourself," said Francis, relentlessly.

"I never- meant to," he said. "It just- happened."

"I always marveled at your superb eloquence and loquacity, did you know?" said Francis. "How could anyone fail to appreciate that you write some of the most boring books ever to be inflicted upon the world?"

"You read my books?" said Arthur. "Emily doesn't. The historicals bore her unless there's a battle."

"They bore me too. Angelique reads them all, I presume out of pity for your sales rankings. I don’t wonder that you are most popular with small children, only that you are popular at all."

"We can't all strew nudes around a house with two children living in it," said Arthur. "Two impressionable children."

At point Matthew wondered if either of them quite remembered he was here anymore, but on the other hand, this was more in two hours than he'd learned about Uncle Francis in eight years.

"I am living in your god-forsaken country," said Francis, "And I mean that literally, I truly believe this country has been forsaken by God- Emily and Matthew can have whatever they want, I have never denied them anything. I-" and his eternal composure faltered for a second. "I thought I was doing enough by them."

"You're not exactly running a broken home," said Arthur uncomfortably. "I think."

Emily returned on the tail end of that statement and raised her eyebrows at Matthew.

Her brother, consumed with guilt over the weed he (only sometimes! and it wasn't a reflection on Uncle Francis or anything, it was just that he'd tried it and it was fun and _he was such a bad nephew_) smoked, couldn't answer her.

"Are you being silly again?" she said. She opted not to change the subject to the possibly massive and eclectic amount of food she'd ordered. Cravings sucked.

"I did not even know you were seeing someone," Francis said, a little sadly.

"Well, obviously," said Emily, casually throwing her brother to the dogs. "Matt knew."

He sputtered. "No I didn't!"

Francis made a sound reminiscent of a stab to the heart. "_Matthew_," he cried.

Emily threw herself down on the sofa next to Arthur, tucking herself against his side with a soft little sigh. "That's my family," she said to him. "I'll tell my friends tomorrow."

"I don't have any friends," said Arthur grumpily. "And I _really_ don't like my family."

"You'll live," she said, and kissed him despite the revolted expressions on her family’s collective faces.

.0.

  
In all honesty Em turned out a little exasperated with how immediately and immensely flashing her bling ameliorated all the gasps of horror and censorious looks and mutterings. Bette, now, _Bette_ she got, because Bette had, not to put too fine a point on it, practically gotten the vapours and had to sit out a whole day of class when Feliciano smiled at her after only six years going to school right next to each other and then promptly called up her priest back home to seek consultation, consolation and possibly confession. Bette almost considered letting her hair down in public indecency. But Natasha's patronizing sigh of relief and hair-petting and her teachers' immediate change of attitude when told she was engaged were just plain old annoying.

"I mean," she told Arthur later, "Ugh, you know? It just made me want to throw off the ring and announce I'd decided to live in sin with lesbians and polygamists in some hippy combine. Not that I will," she added quickly, as Arthur's head lifted from the baby book so fast he nearly got whiplash. "It's just so- UGH. Like oh, okay, you're getting married? Excellent! You're clearly doing the only possible thing that could be done in this situation, what. What what. Tally ho."

"If it makes things easier, then let them think whatever they like," said Arthur, attempting to sound as little British as he could. "You're still going to take your exams there, so it would help," he said drily, "If your teachers weren't convinced you were a no-good futureless urchin, to be someday disavowed without quarter when the journalist covering your drug-overdose death tromps up to the school asking them for some pithy quotes to highlight the degeneracy of Our Youth Today. Or so I've heard."

"Your teachers actually sound so much more interesting than mine do," sighed Emily.

"In retrospect," he agreed, and none-too-casually slid his hand over her still-only-_slightly_-rounded-shut-up-Matt-I'm-not-fat-_or_-showing-yet-thank-you-very-much stomach.

"I see your subject change, and I disapprove of it," she informed him. “Do you see this face? This is me, disapproving. Of your cop out.”

He regarded her with dignity. "I was merely wondering if you started contemplating names for your developing offspring."

"I disapprove of it slightly less," she said. "I've been thinking of- I don't know, Alfie. As a boy's name. I don't have a girl's one yet."

He looked pensive. "I would name a _dog_ Alfie," he said. "If it was a stupid-looking dog. Like a Golden Retriever. Or a particularly excitable St. Bernard."

"Dogs aren't stupid, Arthur," she said fondly. "They're just dogs."

"They could be dogs with dignity," he said with finality.

"When you've trained a dog to act with dignity, let me know," she said sweetly.

"I- Emily-" he said, and she looked at him, "_We_ could have a dog," he said. "If you wanted to. A nice one."

"With dignity," she said.

"Well, of course," he said, and looked back into the book, going red, and Emily thought about her plans, her life, finish out her high school, taking a gap year to- travel? or stay home and tickle her baby through life and maybe that nice dog. Learn to cook, because, Arthur. College, after. Maybe she'd coax Arthur into living in the US- he could write anywhere, as he was anxious to assure her.

Maybe she'd learn a new language.

She laughed, and he looked up again. "What?" he said, almost lazy, and he looked happy, sweet, smiling a softness he probably didn't know he had. She'd have to be bad parent, obviously. Arthur would spoil any progeny absolutely rotten.

"And they lived happily ever after," she said, half to herself.

Arthur's face contorted into a pained wince. "Emily, please," he said, but turned his head back to the book with a smile.

-END-


End file.
